Thursday, September 15, 2011

This post is going to be pretty long because I have writer's block. Trust me, it's much harder to write an articulate, short, pithy post than a long one when you've got writer's block.

I've been doing a lot of experimenting with lacto-fermentation these last two months. It all started with the dilly beans.

In case you've never heard of it, lacto-fermentation is an ancient method of food preservation that utilizes the beneficial bacteria already present on vegetables to preserve them while increasing the available vitamins and enzymes, enhances flavor, texture, digestibility of the vegetables, offers antibiotic and anticarcionogenic substances, all while helping support the growth of healthy flora in our intestines. It's beautiful, really. In the days before freezers and pressure canners, food was preserved in this way. The end result lasts several months in cool storage (a fridge or root cellar).

"Lacto" makes it sound like there's milk in it, and while you can aid
the process of lacto-fermentation by adding whey (the liquidy stuff that floats on top of
yogurt, even commercial yogurt), it's not necessary to do so. As I understand it, "lacto" in
this case actually refers to a strain of beneficial bacteria called lactobaccili which produce lactic acid; the preserving compound.

Sourdough is a form of lacto-fermentation most people are familiar with, and sauerkraut (not the vinegar shelf-stable kind in the store, but the traditional kind made in crocks) is another, but there are so many other things you can lacto-ferment!

Anyway, my point here is not to deliver a discourse on lacto-fermentation but to remark how the interior of my fridge has changed!!

Among my lacto-ferments right now are dilled carrots (not pictured, 'cause I ate all of them right before I thought to take a picture), dilled green bean pickles, Kimchi (Korean sauerkraut), Cortido (Central American sauerkraut), beet kvass, pickled daikon radishes, Kombucha (a fermented tea), dairy kefir, water kefir, and salsa.

It's crazy!! Those cherries are from our farm and I have to make a conscious effort to stay out of them. I only dried a quart's worth and need to make 'em last a whole year. It's my incentive to make more next year.

The O'Reilly's White Chocolate Irish Cream is a Sunday coffee treat.

Stuffed peppers are my favorite meal on earth. It's what I make for my birthday every year and as often as I can outside of that. Besides ground beef and a little pork sausage, these (in an effort to sneak extra nutrition), also contain beef heart and liver. I couldn't taste the organs at all; they were really good.

Kimchi is fantastic with Chinese food, on rice, and (I know this sounds really gross but my palate is really changing) in canned tuna. Cortido is fantastic in tacos, burritos or fajitas. It's also perfect with pupusas, gorditas, tortas, good gravy my mouth is watering. The salsa (because it's fermented) is kinda tangy, so I prefer on something bland like scrambled eggs (though it's great anywhere cortido is, too, and of course on chips though I rarely eat those these days). Beet kvass is a tonic, not a sip-for-fun beverage, so I just drink a little in the morning and at night.

And I LOVE raw milk. Holy cow it's expensive around here, but until I get a "working" milk cow, my husband allows me some extra $$ in the grocery budget to buy it (in part 'cause he really loves it too, I think, hehe).

As I said, dilly beans were the first thing I lacto-fermented. I've since made three more 1/2 gallon batches 'cause I really like them. I'd love to say I eat them on the side of a liverwurst sourdough sandwich or something exotic like that, but honestly I just snack on them by themselves. They're sour, salty, crunchy, dilly... a unique and acquired taste, perhaps, but one I've certainly grown to like (and, er, crave?).

Kombucha I brew because a little bottle costs $3. I can make a gallon for around 50 cents (for the tea bags). Honestly I'm still working to like this one 'cause I always let it ferment a little too long so it's usually pretty tart. I made one batch perfectly and really liked it, but my husband loves it and would down the whole 1/2 gallon in a day if I didn't remind him it takes me a week to brew another batch.

Water kefir I've yet to score a real success with. I'm letting the grains hang out in my fridge (in sugar water) until I've got enough courage to try again. I tried every day for 3 weeks to make a successful batch but it never got fizzy and I just didn't care for it, much (and neither did my husband, though he liked it a lot when he lived in Europe).

We still eat Jimmy Dean sausage (MSG and all) until this Fall when my husband's cousin will butcher our first hog (well, we bought 1/2 of the hog, anyway).

I really like dairy kefir. I strain it (you can see it in a coffee filter inside a strainer over a bowl) until it's really thick and then use it like sour cream. It's especially good mixed into baked potato mashed potatoes (in place of sour cream). I keep saying I'm going to try kefir ice cream but I never have enough for a batch... someday soon I'll have to do that. I also want to try kefir bread.

The whey is used to make lacto-ferments, but there are at least a dozen other uses for it, too.

And these aren't lacto-ferments, but I've usually got radish, broccoli and clover sprouts going, too.

They make lovely salads, are so fresh tasting on sandwiches (or wraps or tacos), and surprisingly are a wonderful last-second topping/addition to soups, especially Asian soups.

So you can see we've been eating and drinking a lot of lacto-fermented things around here the last few months. I'm really quite new to it all but enjoy experimenting and look forward to many many more adventures in this area. Sourdough is my next project to tackle.

As to our health, it could all be the placebo effect of trying something new, but since trying to eat according to Nourishing Traditions and the recommendations of the Weston A. Price Foundation (which includes these lacto-ferments), my skin is much clearer, I have more energy (no afternoon "give me a nap or shoot me now" slump), I don't have labored breathing, my digestion is... er... awesome, my mood has mostly stabilized (I was an emotional roller coaster for a while, there) and my crazy hormonal infertile body seemsto be showing the first signs of marked improvement, too.

So there you have it. This is what happens when I've got severe writer's block.

Thanks, Martha! :) I grew a scoby (rather than buying one) using Food Renegade's method. It took about 10 or 11 days (during the Summer heat). Then I also brew it using her basic recipe. So far I've been using dried fruit rather than juice to flavor it with, though :).

My husband would also love this blog post - I'll have to send it to him. Just out of your post here, he eats raw sauerkraut when he gets up in the morning, LOVES LOVES LOVES Kombucha, and has raw goat milk in his cereal for some breakfasts.

I brew my kombucha too long too sometimes, but I kind of prefer it that way. I have a soda stream seltzer maker and a little bottle of liquid stevia. Just a couple drops of stevia per glass and 1/3 to 1/2 seltzer aded to the kombucha makes a perfect drink. Also try adding overripe peaches to your brewed kombucha and putting it in a mason jar in the fridge!

I got them from our health food store (cheaper than on Amazon). They're Now Foods Sprouting Lids, and like most of the Amazon reviews say, they don't really fit on jars but once we thwacked them down they stay really well and do a fine job :).

Ooh that does sound really good. I have some overripe peaches right now that are slated for my vinegary kombucha :). Thanks for the suggestions! (and my husband says he'll bring me home some stevia, too).

Can you tell me if one can ferment too long? What I mean is, I've been treating all my "lacto-fermention experiments" the same based on an original recipe for sauerkraut. The veggies are submerged in a brine and sit on my counter for about 11 days then transferred to the fridge. Thanks for your help!

Hi Terrie! Well, ferment too long as in can it go bad? In my limited experience, nothing has gone bad, necessarily, but sometimes it gets too sour for our liking. Salsa goes for 2-3 days... when I left it for a full 72 hours it was pretty tangy and I imagine if we'd gone 11 days it would have been inedible (though "safe"). So yes, you could/should probably adjust the length of fermenting according to what you're doing. Sauerkraut gets BETTER the longer you go, as do green beans, but fruit chutneys and tomato products and Kombucha and radishes... yeah... most stuff is better for a shorter ferment :).

I know this is not timely, but if you still have your water kefir grains, try adding citrus juice (freshly squeezed) to the ferment, as well as half of a squeezed lemon ( the skin). In 12 hours I get a delicious natural orangina type beverage, totally carbonated, yum! Don't let it go too long.

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